This document provides an overview of a presentation on best practices for technical managers. It includes tips for managing technology selection such as preparing for meetings with solutions specialists, discussing requirements and desired outcomes, and comparing options. It also offers advice for handling emergencies like assembling the right response team and focusing on resolution over blame. Additionally, it suggests ways to motivate and reward technical staff like using public scoreboards and celebrating wins. The presentation concludes with a crowd-sourced Q&A where attendees can discuss real issues.

2. Nerd, Geek, and Gear Herding
Tips and Tricks for Technical Managers

3. CPE Credit
• In order to receive CPE credit for this session, you must be present for
the entire session.
– Session Code: C-0177A
– Recommended CPE Credit = 1
– Delivery Method = Group Live
– Field of Study = Specialized Knowledge and Applications
• Visit the Sage Summit Connect kiosks to enter CPE credit during the
conference.

4. Your Partner in Dialogue
Grant Howe
• Vice President of R&D w/Sage
• 15+ years in Software Development
• Favorite food: Italian (anything with Alfredo sauce)
• @geekbyte if you want to tweet nice things
• @darthvader if you want to use the dark side

5. “I wouldn’t do nothin’ else”
EDS “Cat Herder” Commercial

6. What are we talking about today?
Best Practices for:
Managing technology selection
Managing emergencies
Growing and rewarding technologists
“Crowd Source” your current technical
management issues

7. Q&A Experiment
at the end of the session
• Note cards on the tables.
• Jot down your real word Nerd / Tech herding
issues or best practices to share.
• We will collectively “crowd source” suggestions
and best practices.

8. “Paging Dr. Nerd”
MANAGING TECHNOLOGY
SELECTION

9. Paging Dr. Nerd
• Talking to a technical solutions specialist is
like going to see the doctor.
• Most people have a preconceived notion of
what the treatment should be.
• The best solutions usually come from
meaningful dialog about the problem or
task and a discussion of the “treatment
options”

10. Tip: When to
call the doctor
When to Call Dr. Nerd
• Are you first line of
contact for staff?
– “Hey Mom, my ear
hurts!”
• Recognize when to
call the “doctor”
– Scope
– Bandwidth
– Timing
– Risks of failure

11. A successful office visit agenda
• Tell me where it hurts.
• Tell me what your desired results
are post treatment.
• Discuss and choose a treatment.
• Take your medicine.

12. Tip: Prepare a
list so you
Tell me where it hurts don’t forget
anything!
• Focus your initial discussion on the symptoms
of your problem.
• Do your best to help me understand your
current state.
Examples:
• Performance of technical assets? How slow?
When did you start noticing this?
• A capability you do not have in your environment?
Tell me about the business processes and
workflow and how this should fit in.

13. Tip: Think big!
What are your desired results Dr. can’t help
if you don’t
• “I want to play tennis three times a week ask for it.
without knee pain.”
Examples:
• I need a collaboration tool for 20 users that are
both on premise and remote.
• I don’t want to buy / manage servers anymore.
• I want users to be able to boot and login to the
network in under 5 minutes.

14. Discuss and choose a treatment
• “Your MRI shows you have a
slipped disc in your lower back,
here are our options…”
 Lets discuss the top 3 options I have come up with.
 Additional solutions we come up with are likely to be
flavors of the top 3.
 Lets talk about these instead of emailing. Real time
discussion is important.

15. Ask questions about each solution
• What will this cost (in time, resources and
money)?
• How does this solution compare to my original
desired end state?
• What other “side effects” can I expect from the
solution, good or bad?
• What is the risk of something going wrong or
Tip: There are causing damage? Is there a mitigation?
NO stupid
questions! • What skills are required to implement and have
you done this before? How many times?
Ask, Ask, Ask

16. Compare the Solutions
• Write down the pros and cons of each
solution and compare them.
• Walk me through your thought process of making
the choice. I want you to be successful and if
you’ve forgotten to consider something, I’ll
discuss it with you. Tip: A good
Dr. won’t be
• You are also entitled to seek a second opinion insulted by 2nd
and talk to others about the solutions. I opinions
encourage you to do so.

17. Take your Medicine
• “Take these, 3 times a day…”
Tip: This is
YOUR
responsibility! • Many people go through all this effort but don’t
follow the prescribed treatment.
• These people usually don’t get results and neither
will you if we don’t follow the plan.
• Solutions are holistic; often we see poor results
from not following the full plan.

18. Most poorly performing organizations do
not suffer from lack of plans or strategy.
They suffer from lack of
consistent execution.

19. “The House is on Fire!”
LEADERSHIP DURING
EMERGENCIES

20. Tip: DON’T
PANIC
The House is on Fire!
When faced with a severe technical crisis (think mail server
down, fried DB server, website hacked) it’s important to
approach the situation methodically and in an organized
manner. When the “fire alarm” sounds, be the calm leader in
your organization.

21. The House is on Fire!
Survey the Situation
Assemble the Team
Act Now!

22. Survey the situation
• What is impacted and what is the current risk?
Tip: Reality
• What’s the possibility of it getting worse?
check!
• What skill sets are needed for recovery?
• What level of alarm should be raised and
to who?
• Volunteer firefighter example

23. Assemble the Team
• Assemble the team. You’ll need the right resources to
investigate more thoroughly and come up with possible
solutions.
• What skill sets are needed for recovery?
Tip: Not the
• Where can you get them? time for OJT!

24. Act Now
• Get your team working to understand the problem right away.
While they’re doing that, you should be managing the situation
with the rest of the organization.

25. Been asked these questions before?
“How could this happen?”
“Who is responsible?”
“What do we need to do to make sure this never happens
again?”
“Who do we need to fire because of this?”

26. Get the Children out First!
• Focus all efforts on diagnosis and
resolution of the issue.
• Postpone discussions that could
either become emotional or will not
further crisis resolution.
• Promise that a root cause analysis
will be delivered to all interested
parties after crisis resolution.

27. Tip: An ounce
Arson investigations are of prevention
performed on cold ashes
• Debrief the team post-crisis, documenting how the situation
began.
• Investigate and define operational changes that could
prevent the crisis from reoccurring.
• Compile a report detailing the crisis, resolution, root cause,
and recommended preventive measures.
• Insist that the preventive measures be
implemented. Accidents happen, but
shame on you if they happen twice.

28. How can you win?
MOTIVATING AND
REWARDING TECHS

29. The IT Situation
It feels like you just can’t win…
• IT infrastructure and Software isn’t thought
of much unless its not working.
• When its not working, staff in general have
a low opinion of those who build / maintain
it.
• When the issue is fixed, few will consider
the effort successful because they were
impacted.
• Few staffers call the support desk to
report that “things are working great,
keep it up!”

30. Tip:
Everyone
Best Practice - Scoreboards
loves a gold
• Setup a public scoreboard in a highly star on their
trafficked location. paper!
• Track meaningful metrics:
– System uptimes
– Project milestones
• Make it clear whether the team is winning or
losing to the reader in 5 seconds.
• Update weekly or monthly.

31. Scoreboard example

32. Best Practice – Celebrate Winning
• Make success visible:
– Mail server uptime cookie celebration
– Project Milestone completion happy hour
– Public congratulations from executives
– High internet availability pizza party
Place more focus and visibility on consistently
winning than on occasional failures

33. Best Practice –
“Motivation” for the cash poor
• Say thank-you often – Do not underestimate the value of these
two words.
• Spend more time talking about “did well’s” and less on “next
times”
• Give paid time to learn between projects.
Tip: Nurture
your team – • Provide career growth advice and
help them mentoring.
learn to fly!
• “Best Companies to Work for” example.

34. Best Practice – Coaching
• 30-45 minute special 1:1 meeting every 8 weeks.
• Staffers submit two “did wells” and one “next time” 24 hrs to
manager prior to the meeting. Manager may add to the list during
the meeting..
• Staffer to discuss each “did well” and what the key factors were in
creating success.
• Staffer to discuss each “next time” and what should be key factors
for creating success next time are.
• Spend more time talking about “did well’s” and less on “next times”
The point is to have dialog with staffers about what they
think is important and listen intently!

35. Lets make it happen
Q&A CROWDSOURCE
EXPERIMENT

36. Q&A Experiment
• Note cards on the tables.
• Jot down your real word Nerd / Tech herding
issues or best practices to share.
• Or tweet w/ ?
• We will collectively “crowd source” suggestions
and best practices.

37. Additional Learning Opportunities
• For information about additional learning opportunities visit
www.SageU.com (Sage University).
• Training options include:
– Anytime Learning—Recorded online training sessions.
– Realtime Learning—Live, online learning.
– Replay Learning—Recordings of live classes.

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daily prize drawings, including an Apple iPad!
• Your feedback helps us improve future sessions and presentation
techniques.
• Session code for this session: C-0177A

39. Contact Us
• Presenter Contact Information:
– Grant Howe, VP R&D Sage Nonprofit
– grant.howe@sage.com
– @geekbyte
• Follow us on Twitter: @Sage_Summit
– Use the official Sage Summit hashtag: #SageSummit
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Thank you for your participation.